A letter to my mother

Dear Mom

I love you. I will miss you every day of my life. I hadn't appreciated how central you were to my life. I'm not sure how I'm going to manage without you. I know I will, eventually, but for now I just cannot see it. I feel lost and empty and homeless.

People loved you, probably more than you realized. I am so glad that you had time to enjoy having friends and doing things with them. I am so glad that you and I had time alone.

Semi-Random

I'm finally coming out of the fog of that shock and initial grief. I don't remember much from the first few days after Mom died, and I've spent most of the past three weeks kind of floating, unable to accomplish anything.

But on Thursday, I feel like I woke from a sound sleep. The sun was shining. I accomplished tasks. I went outside. Since then I have felt aware.

I feel desperate for a recent picture of my mom, and for the sound of her voice. I've dialed her phone number just to hear her message. Kind of pathetic, but who cares. I want to find a way to record it so I can listen when I need to.

Is this truly my life?

Have you ever heard about Smith Magazine's "Six-Word Memoir" projects? You describe your life in six words. They have published several books from what their readers share.

Traditionally, when one loses one's parents, one is usually in one's fifties or sixties, or older if one is lucky, and the parent(s) in their seventies or eighties or more. It is hard to lose a parent, of course, but there usually exists a spouse and children, probably siblings and cousins and aunts and uncles, to comfort one.

To steal someone else's memoir, my life has been "Not quite what I had expected." Or, more accurately: "It's all gone so horribly wrong." 

Because I have none of those people to comfort me. I have this aunt, who has not been a part of my life for 90% of it, as well as her children who I had not seen since the younger ones (now in the thirties) were ten. I have a half-brother who has been even less than 5% of my life and who drops into it now and then when it suits him. He always says he will call in a couple of days, even when I told him about Mom's death. That was more than a week ago. It's okay — I expected that.

Other aunts and uncles let go of me — and I of them — a couple of decades or more ago.

And my younger brother, the treasure of my life, died very young.

This is not how my life should be. Nothing has gone the way it should. Even allowing for my father's dying of a heart attack when I was seventeen, I should have my younger brother as my sibling and friend. I should have married and had children — if anyone was "made" for such things, I was. Family has always meant so much to me, and has been so elusive.

Fear of Sleeping and a Taste of Pain

I had intended to write regularly this summer. After all, my tasks were light. All I had to do was take my mom to treatments and help her out. But cancer consumed my summer, and then it consumed my mom.

I don't want to go to sleep at night. I don't want to get up in the morning. Tonight I fell into a rampage of sobbing, with my best friend patting me and holding my hand. Then he got me kleenex for my nose and a cool washcloth for my face.

I don't usually cry when someone dies, not much. I'm usually the strong one. When my dad died, I felt I had to be strong for my mom --- who was destroyed --- and my brother --- who was young. When my brother died at 18, I had to be strong for a host of people who were leaking tears and acting distraught; no one asked me if I needed any comfort.

There is no one to be strong for now but me. No one who depends on me for comfort.

No one who will be my anchor when I wander in the void. I feel as if gravity has given way and I don't know how to find my way home, or if I have a home to find a way to.

Meep

As some of you know, my grandma died last September after a long period of becoming progressively weaker. She ate less and less and drank less and less. After she died, although Mom and I missed her a great deal (she lived with my mom for several years), Mom wanted very much to travel, and to travel with me when possible. She wanted to go to Europe and to Hawaii with me.

Mom finished radiation on August 13th, just over 3 weeks ago. She has gotten progressively tired and weaker since a couple of weeks into radiation. We've been told that the effects continue after the treatments. She is now so weak that she can barely stand without help. i have to haul her up to get her from a sitting position; so far I haven't hurt myself or dislocated her arm (we aren't doing this correctly but haven't made any other route work yet). I am going to contact Home Health: I cannot do this by myself anymore.

Superwoman Stumbles

My mom never got sick. Ever. Even after she had her gallbladder out (in the bad old days before laproscopy, when it was major abdominal surgery — plus they removed the appendix for kicks I guess), she managed recovery AND my two-year-old brother for a couple of weeks alone (my dad took me camping with some of his family — and my mother let him live).

Mom has always been the Energizer Bunny. She took on more and more responsibilities and tasks when her second husband started aging and getting depressed. When her mom, who moved in a year and a half after Mom's husband died, began slowing down, Mom managed. In the last year of Grandma's life, Mom slept in stretches that started at 4 hours and, at the end, diminished to an hour.

While Mom has been sympathetic with other people being ill or having absolutely no energy, she has not understood those things at all. When Grandma was too tired to eat, Mom was frustrated. When I told Mom I was so tired it hurt (I have fibromyalgia which, when it flares, is debilitating), she made sympathetic noises ... and was frustrated.

I hate that she is having to learn in a very personal way what being terribly ill and utterly exhausted are like.

She's gotten very weak this past week and sometimes needs help standing up. Given that the radiology oncologist said that the effects of radiation will continue and probably grow worse for a few weeks after treatments are over — and treatments ended only three days ago — it's going to get worse. We both find her weakness kind of scary, I think. Mom says "This is just stupid!" I've finally told her she cannot say that anymore; I don't want her to be negative toward herself. She says "This is ridiculous" and "I don't understand why I feel this way." Then I have to point out the obvious; she is just not used to thinking this way. She finds her state of health very difficult to accept.

She is going to get better. The effects of the radiation will begin to fade within a few weeks (or up to two months, depending on which doctor you believe). Under the best circumstances, she should be able to live several years. Maybe more. At the least ... well, I am not accepting the least. But it will be two or three months until she begins to resemble Superwoman again.

Then she'll have enough energy to power the whole house, once again.

Take Care

Over on Lucy's blog, Witchy Betty reminded me to take care of myself, too. if my fibro acts up, or if I get sick, I won't be much good for taking care of Mom.

That's pretty obvious today: I'm almost as exhausted as Mom. In fact, I'm going to bed at least an hour earlier than she is.

In addition, I haven't kept up with a project. I have the last article to write, and today I was informed they want the article by Thursday, two days from now. I was going to work on it last week, and should have at least started it way back when, but I was waiting for the answers to some questions. The only question the client didn't answer last week was the date of my deadline.

So I am doing something good for me tomorrow: I'm allowing one of Mom's friends take her to her radiation appointment. Not only do I avoid the one-hour (each way) drive, I will have at least an extra three hours to work on the article. Woo hoo!

And now, it is 9:00 p.m. and I'm so tired I am in pain. I've taken a couple of pills and am now moseying off to bed.

I'm taking care of Mom. I think doing so is teaching me how to take care of myself.

Cancer-related

My mom has cancer. It came as such a surprise. I'm sure everyone who develops cancer or who is close to someone who does feels the same surprise, the same shock.

We had made the mistake of thinking life is fair --- we have lost so much. We had succumbed to the belief that all of life's hardships and good fortune balance out, but they don't. I knew that, but I had forgotten. Life is reminding me.

I've heard and read that hardship teaches you something you need to learn; I've heard the same about cancer.

People say that hardship teaches you to value each minute of the day. However, "teaching" implies directed volition and a teacher. I don't believe in such a teacher. In my belief system, life has a great deal of randomness and chance. Entropy, if you like. Serendipity, too. And what is cancer except entropy experienced in the most personal way?

Grief becomes easier to endure when you have practice at it. You no longer feel as if you will die from it. All of the losses I've experienced have been horribly painful and have left holes in my life and in me. But I've known Mom the longest, and we are not only mother and daughter but great friends. And when she dies, I lose the last of my family. Thinking of being so alone wrenches me --- I'm tearing up and hurting just writing this.

In the end, Mom and I will do what we always have done: we will get through it. Well, for Mom it will be over. For her, I guess, there is no "through" but simply an end. After the final moment of her life, I will get through it alone.

I just hadn't expected to do so this soon.

Had a bad day

There is a song by Daniel Powter called "Bad Day":

"Because you had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around"

Bad days happen. I have them. We all do. I suppose I should keep my mouth shut when I have them because people get all concerned when I let them out. What the heck? It's all part of the truth of existence. I did say I was going to be honest in this blog. But people get worried if you aren't Miss Mary Sunshine all the time.

Isolation

***Warning: this is not a happy or at least optimistic blog post, but some times ya just gotta let it out.***

I took a little people-tour on Facebook today. Maybe I was feeling lonely. I searched on the name of my old boyfriend from high school and found him right off (there were only 2). I then clicked on various of his friends who were my school friends and saw that he is in contact with virtually everyone we went to HS with. And they all look to be married, many with children. Full lives.

Here I am: never married, no kids, no relationship, very few friends, and unemployed to boot. All I could think of was "What is wrong with me?"

Job-Hunting 101: Cover letters CYA*

Cover letter I wrote for a recent editor position I found on the Web.

Dear hiring manager,

I am an experienced editor, both copy and substantive, who has worked with technology and science for many years. I have and am currently working on an intermittent basis editing scientific papers for NOAA Fisheries, most recently for the Galveston lab (a few hours per month).

I have edited academic work for scientists and graduate students.
I have gained, and can quickly gain, expertise with any type of subject matter.
I have edited for non-native English speakers.
I enjoy editing highly technical or scientific materials, helping to make them clearer and easier to understand. I love deadlines.

I am interested in hearing more about this position and the work involved. I hope to hear from you soon.

Skye Hughes


I went to a talk at the local Association of Women in Computing (AWC) meeting in November; the talk was given by two local recruiters. While the job market is tough here in Houston, it's not as bad as most places. But it's still hard to find work right now.

They offered quite a few suggestions and insights, and there was one in particular that surprised all of us: Hirers and recruiters DON'T READ COVER LETTERS. But you have to include one. Period.

Birthdays, depression, and my little brother

I had a younger brother and he was my treasure. From the day he was brought home from the hospital, I felt responsible for his well-being. And if my parents had died and he had lived, I would have bent my life around to make things good for him. But that isn't the way it went.

My birthday falls in January, which is usually a dreadful month The month encircles the post-holiday letdown and gray, cold weather. In the places I've lived most, add "wet or damp" to that description. But the thought of my birthday generally cheers me up: it is the one day of the year that is about Me. It is the one day of the year when I feel I have the right to demand things go my way.

Unfortunately, while I look forward to my birthday, I always get depressed somewhere in the days preceding or following. And every year, after driving myself batty as I struggle with an unexplained blue mood, I remember again why. It's because my little brother killed himself four days before my twenty-second birthday. And while it has now been 27 years since this happened, I still experience this forgetting, then remembering.

That Damned Novel: Why does it hurt to write and how vulnerable do I want to be?

I'm writing on my novel again. That Damned Novel. TDN, for short. I haven't touched it for a couple of weeks. It haunts me. I feel I have to start over from scratch, but I don't want to trash 36,000 + words. I've totally rewritten the ex-boyfriend from stalker to clueless. The novel still a bit too like conventional romances. I'd rather it be more like Crusie's and Rich's novels: unconventional romance. More complex. More real. Not to imitate, but because those are the types of book I like best.

I am so confused and conflicted.

It's so damned painful, too. I love to write. If there is any way in which the Universe has some sort of structure to how we are made, much like how our individual cells have specific structure and purpose, then I was made to write. I so loved writing short stories, when I wrote before. Some of them came so easily. The one I published, all those years ago, was such a one.

Ch-ch-changes! continued

Part Two

So here I am: in Houston, still essentially unemployed (thank the gods for extended unemployment benefits) and going through my savings faster than I like, and still feeling at sea and not feeling very different from when I lived in Oregon. And there is still the question of "What do I want to do?"

The answer to that is both simple and complicated: I want to write. Sure, I want to keep doing the technical/scientific thing. But I want to write fiction. Stories. Novels. That's what I've wanted all my life. And I've never had the guts, beyond some short stories. I haven't finished anything since I was thirty.

I still need self-confidence. I need to give myself credit for my accomplishments, rather than brushing them off. I need to stop grieving over my interminable solitary state and just "get over it." (Many people live alone, with few connections. They survive, dammit!) I want to be peaceful and happy, strong and confident. I want to do what I want to do and make a living at it, even if "it" is several things. I want to have fun, be myself, have courage, and stop comparing myself to everyone around me.

Ch-ch-changes!

Part One

I am a forty-eight- ... on the verge of forty-nine- ... year-old woman. I am a professional technical writer and editor (that includes science, too) with a gajillion years of experience, but I am unemployed. And looking. (I use the term "between jobs" to remind myself that another one is right around the corner. So far the corner has been a very long way away.) I am endeavoring to change my self and my life; there is a lot of stuff that I am wayyyy too old to still be struggling with, in my opinion, and I have been suffering from a multitude of symptoms that are life's little way of saying "time to change." But a lot more forcefully and profanely.

After a few years of increasing dissatisfaction with my life, I finally began to make major changes to myself and my life in 2007. I began setting boundaries, particularly with my family. I began to think of living somewhere other than in the small town on the Oregon Coast where I had lived for several years. And I ... or rather, life ... broke down walls that I had spent two or three decades building. I could no longer refuse to look at my life, and I could no longer be the person I had been, no matter that I still try from time to time.

Your ideas please

I'm having difficulties finding work, as everyone around me knows. There are a few positions opening up in technical writing and editing. One position in particular keeps popping up: Technical Writer in Saudi. It doesn't specify the contract length or the rate of pay, but I imagine the length is at least a year and the pay is astronomical. And there would be no place to spend it because I am a single woman and wouldn't be allowed to wander around alone, I'm sure.

Would you do this? Would you take a year or two away from your friends and family and live in a country like Saudi in order to have a job? Especially a high-paying job?

The New 'Do

Notice my new blog-do? The old one didn't constrain the area for the title graphic, causing the graphic to look short and the text to run past the edge of the graphic. I didn't like it. So I decided to try out another of the blogspot templates.

And the old one kind of hid the link to where you can leave a comment; I hope the comment link in this template is noticeable enough. I haven't figured out how to do a couple of things I'd like to do, but doing them is for the future and maybe I cannot do them here at blogspot. I'll figure it out, now that I am paying more attention to this blogging whim of mine.

The Sincerest Form of Flattery

Today I am following the lead of ... copying, perhaps ... an author named Lani Diane Rich. She began a blog series under her Lucy March name to document her life and personal changes over the next 516 days, which is when she hits her 40th birthday.

In 1 year and 2 weeks, I will be 50. That is 54 weeks. Three hundred seventy-eight days. Wow. There is a lot I want to do with myself and my life by then. Some very real changes I want to make. And I want to blog about what I do and the changes I make, to share with my friends and family, most of whom are far away, to give myself regular writing practice that stretches both my skills and my creativity, and to give myself a record of all these things. These are the goals I originally set for this blog.

Goals, not resolutions

New Year's resolutions are easily broken. They are what you will do that year, and if you don't achieve them that year, you have failed. (Studies show that people become quite depressed when they break their resolutions.)

Goals, on the other hand, are targets, and need not be finished within the year for success. As I am a perfectionist and I have always considered life to be something you either get an A in or an F, setting myself up for something that I can fail at isn't such a good idea. I know — having an "A or F" perception of life isn't a good idea either, but I can't fix that problem quickly and working around it at least allows me to accomplish some things.

I haven't accomplished much, in my eyes, this past year. I am still mostly unemployed and I have made few friends (and some of those simply disappeared). I haven't finished a novel or a piece of art, and I don't know Houston like the back of my hand. Nor have I ventured into the unknown again, haven't checked out Austin or Dallas.

As I mentioned earlier, I am a perfectionist.